


We Could Be Anyone

by agent85



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Based on spoilers for 3x18, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Undercover as a Couple, episode speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6666781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/pseuds/agent85
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because promo photos for 3x18 exist, and I honestly can't help myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Could Be Anyone

_This could have been our story_ , she thinks.

Two people, meeting a contact to negotiate a deal.

Two people who haven't seen the view from the bottom of the ocean.

Two people who never had a cosmos-sized chasm between them.

Maybe they knew, right away, that they were meant for each other. Maybe they recognized the spark when they first shook hands. Maybe they had all the time in the world.

He looks at her behind black-rimmed glasses, and she feels smile break through her cloudy thoughts. And she should be happy, because his hand is on the small of her back, guiding her through the door like she's made of spun gold.

She _is_ happy.

She's incandescent.

He looks like the luckiest man in the world, and he looks at her like she's the magic that made him that way. She wouldn't recognize herself in a mirror, but she would know that smile anywhere.

And yet, there is a whisper in her head saying it could have always been like this.

Because she first read _Jane Eyre_ at the age of twenty-six and mourned the sixteen-year-old who needed to know that no net ensnared her.

Because she first kissed Leopold Fitz at the age of twenty-eight, and mourned the seventeen-year-old who didn't know the softness of his lips, the warmth of his smile, the comfort of wrapping his existence around her.

And maybe in another life, she wouldn't have needed to wait this long. Maybe she would have recognized the string tied between her ribs and his, and it wouldn't have stretched across the galaxy and torn at her flesh.

But still, he is here now, under a different name, but with the same eyes; holding a case that might save or destroy the world, but holding her hand like she is his.

They sit down and order drinks, smiling at each other in a way she still can't believe, and maybe this is just how it had to happen. Maybe it's all the bitterness that makes this so sweet.

She stares at her drink for a second, knowing his eyes haven't left her, wondering why he has to sit so far away.

He still has wounds, she knows, but she can heal them. They have time.

She breathes in and out and reminds herself that despite all the moments they missed, they are in her fingertips now. She is stealing one as they speak, as he wonders how long they will have to wait, and as she knows it won't be long now.

And if, in the midst of his worry, she sends him a look that makes him stop, well, she is exercising a right well-earned. And if he clears his throat and straightens his tie, she will let it widen her smile.

And if, by some small miracle, she pulls him closer to her with her eyes, then it's only to ease the tension in their string, which, after everything, deserves to hang slack beside them.

They could have had any story, but fate gave them this one, a story of two people who were ripped apart and found their way back to each other.

Her fingertips brush the hand on his lap, and they have time, they have time, and they won't waste a second of it. Even when the walls shake, and when the earth opens to swallow them whole, they will still have each other.

And how could she ask for any other story than that?

 


End file.
